


Time in the Country

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Classic Mode Mechanics (Fire Emblem), Dancer Ferdinand von Aegir, Espionage, Families of Choice, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: Following the defeat of Those Who Slither in the Dark, Hubert needs time to recover.He struggles to adjust.Related toBeyond and Behindbut may be read as stand-alone.
Relationships: Bernadetta von Varley & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 26
Kudos: 219





	Time in the Country

**0.**

Ferdinand looks up. Back and around. 

His hair falls in his face. Obscures his left eye. 

“That is the point, is it not?”

Hubert holds the Crest stone. The flesh that clings to it is still warm. 

Ferdinand turns around. Blood coats most of his clothes. His shoes. None of it is his.

The bells on the sash of the dancer’s uniform chitter rather than chime. 

It is the only sound in the carnage. 

“War is miserable,” he says, bland and matter of fact. 

Hubert’s gloves are soaked. Ferdinand reaches out. He brushes the flesh from the stone to the ground with his bare hands. 

“We have what we came for,” he says. 

He curls Hubert’s fingers around the stone. Looks up. He doesn’t smile. His eyes –

“Let us go home.” 

**i.**

Ordelia is temperate and mild in the summer. 

Hubert’s first week and a half in House Ordelia is uneventful. It has to be. He arrives in a poor state. Twitchy and far too emotional, vacillating between panic that seems outside of himself and badly tempered paranoia. The Count and Countess are careful as they help him settle in, keeping a firm distance and limiting their bodily movements. Hubert is barely able to speak coherently, let alone apologise. 

He knows them. He respects them. He knows their sacrifices. Lysithea was close to Edelgard. She brought everyone so much joy and fought so hard. She died two years ago and just before her, Linhardt, and Hanneman’s research to remove her Crests bore fruit. 

These are the only things that keep Hubert from lashing out.

Manuela arrives soon after Hubert is settled into a guest bedroom. She is more familiar with him and therefore firmer in her words and actions. She gives Hubert a nerve draught that is more complicated and intensive than the inconsistent herbals Hubert has been self-medicating with for the past couple of years. It makes his heart calm and his mind quiet instantaneously. She warns him that this is only temporary. She will not teach him how to make it. 

“For the next couple of weeks,” she says as Hubert forces himself to drink the whole contents of the small cup, “you will rest. Hopefully by then you won’t need to continue taking this, but we will reassess then and not before. Do you understand?” 

Hubert nods. He has no intention of repeating the necessary but utterly humiliating conversation he had with Edelgard and Manuela a couple nights ago in Enbarr. It is lucky that Hubert does not particularly enjoy the artificial calmness nor the quiet. He feels neutered and disconnected even though he is completely lucid. 

The guest rooms he occupies are very pleasant. The reception room is small but not stuffy, and it is comfortable to take meals in with one or two people for company. The bedroom windows face south and west, and the lighting helps him fall asleep sometime in the night and wake up around lunchtime. Some of this may also be a side effect of the medication, since Hubert’s sleep is disturbed and erratic without aid, but being exposed to natural light does help. 

For the first couple of days, Hubert does little more than wake, eat, and bathe.

He tries, very hard, not to think about anything at all. 

**ii.**

He is not allowed to visit Lysithea’s grave. 

He asks to do so on the fifth day when Manuela comes with the Countess, but they both tell him it would be better if he waits. Manuela blatantly watches him drink the new dose of draught, a consequence of his behaviour in the previous months. The Countess is kind enough to distract him from the awkwardness of the situation by offering him several books. Two are concerned with historical agriculture in Hyrm, which seems like something Ferdinand would read. The other two are about pegasus care, which Hubert is guiltily more interested in. Hubert finishes the draught and accepts the books. He thanks both Manuela and the Countess and is left to occupy himself with the books in the sunlit, pleasant room. 

He doesn’t do much else aside from reading. He writes a little, but only enough to make sure Edelgard hears from him. Manuela makes him go for walks outside, and the Count accompanies him with his cane. He keeps Hubert on garden paths and makes conversation about the weather and the geography of his territory. Hubert nods, unable to find too much to say except to occasionally ask questions. 

He is aware that he does not have to say anything, but he still feels he should be polite. The Count and Countess opened their home to people like him whom their daughter thought of as friends and companions. They ask for nothing and are very generous. Dorothea stayed with them a year ago for several months before returning to the opera, much restored. Hubert is aware that Felix has come through House Ordelia, but he is careful not to think of why or what for. 

Outside of Manuela checking in on him every lunch with the Countess and his walks with the Count, Hubert mainly stays in his room. He does not have to. The only parts of the House he is not allowed to go is the graveyard adjacent the ruined House chapel and to the library, which attaches to the private quarters of the Count and Countess. If he wanted, Hubert could go riding as his horse is in the stables. He could go for a swim in the mild waters of the river that bisects the property. He could speak to the House staff and build up a repertoire. He could ask if he could go shopping in town.

He thinks about doing these things. 

He goes to bed at night fully intending to do these things.

**iii.**

He stays in his room.

**0.**

Garreg Mach is cold and drafty. In the absence of the clergy and servants, it is overgrown with weeds and smells in places not only stale but rotting. It is, however, a solid defensive position with high ramparts to place scouts so long as they can hold it. There is also Abyss, and the deep underground connections that they need to win the war are much easier to access than elsewhere. 

Hubert knows all of this. A large part of his brain is stuck in shock that Edelgard managed to find Byleth here. 

Mercedes, Lorenz, and Lysithea arrive without too much fanfare but with great joy. Most of the excitement comes from seeing them well and the news they bring from Fhirdiad, Gloucester, and Ordelia. It is different from some of what Edelgard and Hubert already know, which has troubling implications. Edelgard accepts their presence with her cool regal expression unmoving except for her eyes, full of sparkle and life. 

Everyone is overjoyed to see Byleth and to reconvene the Black Eagles Strike Force. Edelgard is as happy as Hubert has seen her since the war began. She embraces not only Byleth but Lysithea, who has grown and reminds Hubert with a stab of something deep in his gut of Edelgard’s favourite older sister. This is what Edelgard needed. 

For five full years, there was nothing Hubert could do to soothe her. 

Even though Hubert is pleased and so deeply relieved, his failure burns. 

Hubert goes to find Ferdinand that evening. He is, as he tends to be since he, Edelgard, and Hubert returned to Garreg Mach a week ago, sitting in the library. He doesn’t look up from where he stands with his candle, head bent over a great book laid out on a stand. Hubert adjusts his hold on the dinner tray before stepping more heavily. Ferdinand looks up, blinking as he focuses and his eyebrows moving up upon his face. 

“Ah,” he says as Hubert approaches. “Did I miss dinner?”

Hubert nods. He sets the serving of fish sandwich and pot of Almyran Pine Needles on the table after he moves a stack of slightly water-damaged hymnals to the side. Ferdinand sighs through his nose. He reaches up to push his hair out of his face. Hubert notices too late that Ferdinand hands, ungloved, have ink on his fingers. The motion leaves errant streaks of ink over his left eyebrow and across his forehead. 

“What?” Ferdinand asks as Hubert opens his mouth before he notices his own hand. “Ah.”

Hubert pulls out a handkerchief. Crosses around the work table to reach out. Ferdinand blinks at him before holding still. 

“It will stain,” he says as Hubert presses the cloth to his brow. 

Hubert does not speak. He wipes at the ink until it comes away from Ferdinand’s eyebrow and skin. Ferdinand lets him take his right hand and do the same to his fingers. He watches Hubert work, even though the tea is growing cold. 

They do not speak. 

There is nothing to say. 

**iv.**

On the tenth day in House Ordelia, Bernadetta comes to visit. 

After the battle against Rhea, Bernadetta retreated to House Varley. The first year, she didn’t travel from her House. The war had been particularly unkind to her because she was their most dependable archer, and Hubert had thought with deep sympathy she would go fully into seclusion in the aftermath. Bernadetta had always been so suspicious of people and for very good reasons. The war proved many of her worries, even though she left her room more often towards the end. 

It was when Lysithea began to fail in the second year and Dorothea began to have adverse nerves that Bernadetta began to travel from Varley to Enbarr. Ferdinand often met her on her way as she passed through Aegir territory, and sometimes Fleche came from Bergliez with them. When she wasn’t cheering Lysithea with embroidery or helping Dorothea through her day, she often came to speak to Hubert if he was free. He enjoyed their conversations over her preferred, too sweet tea, if only because Bernadetta shared things Hubert had no access to in the emotional life of their friends. Hubert shared with her his worries for Edelgard, who loved Lysithea as a lost sister. She also deeply missed Byleth, who had gone to Fhirdiad with Mercedes to run an orphanage. 

After Lysithea’s death, they spoke less deeply. Bernadetta came less to Enbarr, but she wrote to Edelgard weekly if not more. She wrote to Hubert as well, but it became harder and harder for Hubert to respond. There were many reasons. Hubert does not fool himself. 

Despite themselves, they share a lot in common. 

Now:

The Countess shows Bernadetta into the reception room. Hubert stands from his seat by the window, but Bernadetta shakes her head.

“Hubert,” she says as the Countess steps out and Hubert sits back down, “it’s good to see you. How are you feeling?” 

Hubert cannot respond immediately. Despite the fact she was the one who begged him to Manuela in the first place three weeks ago, Hubert is embarrassed to be seen in his current state. The draught keeps him from becoming illogically panicked, but it doesn’t mask how he feels oddly weak and vulnerable. These feelings make little sense. He is not being kept in Silence, nor is he in any way restrained. He elected to be here and even requested from Edelgard his own leave. 

She had given it to him with no little relief. That had hurt a great deal. 

Hubert tries not to think about it. 

“I am… less agitated, I suppose,” he finally manages before motioning to the chair by the writing desk. “You may sit, if you wish.” 

“Thank you,” Bernadetta says, and she pulls out the chair and sits. “You do look better. Have you been able to sleep?” 

“Yes,” Hubert says, which is itself an improvement.

Not because the quality of his sleep is great because it isn’t. He is not allowed sleeping draughts nor alcohol, although he has never enjoyed the latter. He has had physical activity, but it is light and enough to keep him physically healthy. He spends most of his days and nights shut in his rooms. 

But he is sleeping. It happens. 

“I’m relieved to hear that,” she says. 

It is heartfelt but also matter of fact. Hubert knows that she understands he would not stand to be treated with gentleness. The fact that he is here in House Ordelia being treated like any other patient requiring time in the country has cost him most of his pride. He feels not only ineffective but as if all of his failures from birth until now are on display. The past week and a half has been spent in a haze of muted self-doubt. 

But the alternatives were worse. He knows he needs to be here. The state he was in before was untenable. 

Bernadetta has brought books. They are much more to Hubert’s interests, covering recent magic experiments and including a new treatise from Linhardt and Hanneman on humane Crest technology. She includes a couple manuscripts of her own work, the only fiction Hubert likes to read. She also brings a bag of coffee from Edelgard and spiced jerky that she must have gone to buy specially from the fishmonger Hubert prefers in Enbarr. Hubert struggles to find the right words to express his gratefulness, but she does not judge him for it. 

“I have some business in Goneril,” Bernadetta says after they finish tea. “Hilda and Marianne want to open up a shop, and they’re interested in selling my embroidery.” 

“Oh?” Hubert says, sincerely surprised and pleased. “This is the first I have heard.” 

Bernadetta smiles at him. Small and very bright. Since the first broach she made him, she’s made him decorative doilies for his coffee featuring pegasi and a blanket for his birthday the past year. The blanket is currently draped over his lap and legs to keep him warm. It has even been washed since his arrival. 

“I think I will give it a go,” she says, nervous but clearly joyful at the idea and Hubert’s clear approval. “Nothing too complicated. Maybe just broaches, and simple things like flowers. Not everyone appreciates what we like, you know.” 

Hubert smiles. 

“Very true,” he says.

For a moment, he is very happy. 

**v.**

Happiness is, of course, fleeting. 

After Bernadetta’s departure, Hubert has a day and a half that he can only describe as lost. He knows that things happen. He holds conversations, goes for his regular walk, and writes a letter to Edelgard, but he would not be able to recount details if his life depended upon it. 

“I believe,” Manuela says two mornings after Bernadetta left, “we should reduce the amount you are taking.”

Hubert swallows the last of the nerve draught. He hands her back the cup. She takes it, frowning at him. 

“Oh?” Hubert asks because he’s caught on that Manuela wants him to respond to her regarding his own health; she seems to want him to be involved, even if his judgement has been poor in the past. “Why?”

“Bernadetta said you’re spending too much time in this room,” Manuela says as she accepts the cup back. 

Hubert does not have anything to say to that. It is the truth, and he has prided himself throughout his life on heeding the truth first and foremost, even over Edelgard. He does, however, feel faintly betrayed. 

He is aware from the pinched look on her face that his silence speaks volumes. 

There is nothing Hubert can say that is not offensive or damning. 

So he doesn’t. 

**0.**

During the height of the war and after: 

“Hubert.” 

There is so much death. Hubert is ready for it. He has lived mired in the miasma since he can remember. As Edelgard’s blackened hand, he knew that this was his fate. They had to become just as evil as Those Who Slither in the Dark to be able to combat them. He is no better than Solon or Lord Arundel or anyone else when it comes down to it. 

The problem is: 

Ferdinand is here. 

Edelgard is not here. She can no longer pretend to be the Flame Emperor because she is the Emperor of Adrestia and all of Fódlan. Hubert must continue to fight, even when she cannot be by his side.

That is why Ferdinand comes with him. He does not have quite the raw power of Edelgard, but he is swift and moves faster than her. He can use lances and axes, and he has mastered the Sword Dance that cannot be matched. He does not baulk at even the most disgusting elements of Hubert’s work, and he does not have to be directed or managed. He is, by all standards, a perfect companion in these underground, out of sight battles. 

“Hubert,” Ferdinand says again.

It is a little louder. Hubert has just been staring at him. Ferdinand is covered in gore. Blood and guts and everything else imaginable. They stand in a room that has become carnage, bleak and dark and unsightly. Ferdinand’s hair, bright and long and wild –

“Ah,” Ferdinand sighs. 

He lifts his hands. Callused and blunt-nailed and not at all those of a soft noble leading a courtly life. He reaches out. Cups his hands beneath Hubert’s jaw. Over his cheeks. Frames his face. 

His hair –

“I am here,” Ferdinand says.

He burns so brightly that Hubert may go blind. 

“Come, Hubie,” he says, clear and sure. “Let me take you home.” 

**vi.**

Edelgard comes to visit on the seventeenth day.

Without the nerve draught, Hubert does feel much more like himself. The consequences of this is that he feels like himself. All the thoughts and worries that the medication had mellowed or stopped altogether are back, just as loud and encompassing as before. Hubert understands that it has to be this way. He repeats this daily to Manuela, who frowns at him and tries to convince him to go outside. 

Hubert does not want to go outside. 

During the war, there had been targets. He had known his paranoia had a sure foundation, and he had battles to be fought. In the last year and a half against Solon and the stragglers, Hubert knows that he threw himself into the darkness. It was a necessity. Edelgard and Ferdinand were by his side, and he knew that he could depend upon them to pull him back out. If they couldn’t, they would make sure he did not turn against everyone else. That he would die with a shred of himself to keep. He trusted them with everything. 

He hated himself for that weakness. 

“Ferdinand has been asking after you,” Edelgard says after pouring their tea. 

Hubert swallows. It is camomile. Calming for the nerves. He hates it. He knows it reminds Edelgard of Dimitri. 

Ferdinand struck Dimitri down after Edelgard’s battalion set him on fire. 

Hubert sets his cup down. It connects with the saucer less silently than he would prefer, but there is not much to be done about that. He keeps his gaze on the half-drunk coffee filling the cup and how it ripples. 

“Is he,” Hubert says. 

Edelgard does not say anything, which forces Hubert to look back up. She gazes at him steadily but less dissecting than Manuela. Somehow, that puts Hubert a little bit more at ease. 

“He’s taken on some of your duties as you are aware,” she says because that had been Hubert’s suggestion almost a month ago when he had to request leave. “I think he is doing admirably, considering the sudden increase in workload.” 

Hubert nods. He is more than able, however, to hear the _but_ that she does not voice as she continues. 

“I believe he was prepared for something like this,” she says, and she watches his reaction closely; Hubert knows that even if he caught the stiffening of his shoulders in time, she would have seen his shock. “He has been concerned about your health for a while.”

Which means Edelgard has also been concerned. Between them and even when he is physically absent, Ferdinand serves to voice opinions. Emotions and practical facts that both Edelgard and Hubert overlook. Ferdinand says aloud all the things they cannot ask for from each other without feeling as if they are intruding. 

In the war, they were more open. Surrounded by their friends, they could lay their thoughts and opinions bare. Since Lysithea died, they both took a step back. Edelgard dealt with her grief by helping Dorothea, who struggled to understand death in what seemed like peacetime. She concentrated on building the world that Lysithea would have wanted. Just six months ago, Linhardt and Hanneman were able to remove her Crest of Flames. 

Hubert went into battle, Ferdinand at his side, and pretended that this was his way of dealing with grief. 

The only person he fooled was himself. 

Hubert stares at his tea. He should have asked for hot water to brew coffee. He should have asked for a separate pot for Edelgard to make Bergamot. He has failed –

“Hubert,” Edelgard says, and she sounds so very far away even as she sits so close that their knees nearly touch beneath the table. “I will be staying overnight. Perhaps you should rest.” 

“Perhaps,” Hubert says. 

It sounds hollow to his own ears. 

**0.**

After Rhea is defeated:

Ferdinand returns to Aegir. On the surface, this looks nothing out of the ordinary. He is officially Duke Aegir by Edelgard’s acknowledgement and proclamation. Aegir is his territory, and it has been ravaged by war as much as any other. As a responsible noble, he must return to reassure his people and help them get back on their feet. 

In truth, Ferdinand returns to Aegir to set his affairs in order. He designates two stewards to care for Aegir, his House doctor who helped birth and raise him and a senior merchant who had been acting as his unofficial treasurer for the past three years. He also writes and officialises a will. Management of the territory would go to Edelgard in the event of his death, and his House would be dissolved after distributions were made to help families and businesses through the transition. Ferdinand spends four months setting into place land and education reforms, adjusting taxes, and distributing aid funds. He sends final copies of all of these changes to Enbarr a couple of days before he returns. 

“Thank you for your patience,” he says when Hubert receives him at the city gates, which are still broken; the city walls are battle-charred.

“You worked very hard,” Hubert says as Ferdinand dismounts his horse. 

“Is this a joke about my face?” Ferdinand asks, smiling because Hubert’s gaze lingers on the dark bruises under his eyes and faintly grey pallor of his skin.

Hubert huffs. 

He does not say, _Edelgard and I were alarmed when we received your will._

He also does not say, _I will not allow you to die._

Instead, he says: 

“Her Majesty has been waiting for you.”

Ferdinand grimaces. He doesn’t roll his eyes. They fall in step together as they walk the partially repaired road towards the castle. 

“We have a lot of work to do,” he says, looking up at the red and black banners flapping in the autumn wind. 

“Yes,” Hubert agrees.

Ferdinand hair flickers in the breeze. 

**vii.**

Hubert sleeps through breakfast. He sleeps, in fact, well through lunch. When he wakes, the sun has crested over the sky. His head feels heavy and stuffed with fuzz. His body aches. When he finally manages to pry his eyes open and realises the time, he jolts up so quickly that he over balances and hits his head with his own knee. 

“Hubert.” 

Terror grips him. Hubert freezes. His heart hammers in his throat. Ears. 

“Hubie,” Ferdinand’s voice says again, low and clear; there is a shifting of boots on the carpeted floor, “it is Ferdinand.”

Hubert cannot look. 

A deep breath. In. A little longer on the out. 

“Do you need proof it is me?” 

In the war, they stole faces. Bodies. Voices. Memories. Minds. 

Hubert clenches his fists on Bernadetta’s blanket and tries to breathe. 

A shifting. Boots and then legs. Kneeling on the carpet. 

Hubert likes to kill in complete darkness. 

Ferdinand is better at public executions. 

“Before the battle against Dimitri,” and the memory blooms in the venus flytraps that decorate the blanket, “I told you that, if I died, I would like you to keep a lock of my hair.” 

This is a memory no one else could know. They lay in Ferdinand’s dorm room in Garreg Mach, where none of their enemies could reach them. Ferdinand tasted like fish and onions and a little bit of coffee because that is what Hubert had on his nightstand. Hubert tasted of fried fish and coffee. They wrinkled their noses at each other’s tastes, and then they couldn’t help but laugh. It made their kisses that night so much sweeter. 

“You still have it,” Ferdinand says as Hubert manages to lift his eyes and turn to where Ferdinand kneels beside his bed. “That is the contents of the locket around your neck.” 

No one, not even Edelgard, knows that. 

“Ferdinand,” Hubert says, and it is weepy and desperate and not his voice at all and he is reaching, grasping, needing, “Ferdie –”

He rises. Lets Hubert grab his hair and wrap his other arm around his shoulders. He leans on the bed, careful not to snag his traveling armour on the blanket’s soft knit, and Hubert buries his face against his collar to inhale his scent. Sweat from swift travel. The silver and steel of his mail and armour. Maintenance oil. And beneath that:

“Ferdie,” Hubert whispers as Ferdinand wraps his arms around Hubert’s chest, his hands resting over his back, secure and steady, “I think I’m losing myself.” 

“On the contrary,” Ferdinand murmurs, soft and certain, “you are still Hubert. You are having a bad time. That is understandable.” 

“Understandable,” Hubert echoes.

“Yes,” Ferdinand affirms as he rubs his right hand against Hubert’s spine and lower ribs soothingly. “It was a long war. We killed a lot of people.” 

Hubert stares at the back of Ferdinand’s neck. The short baby hairs that move as Hubert breathes. He wonders if anyone has reminded Ferdinand to brush his hair since Hubert came to House Ordelia. Bernadetta can do Edelgard’s hair, but Ferdinand only allows Hubert to touch his hair. His body. 

Because Ferdinand does not like to be touched. He does not take kindly to being startled from behind. He doesn’t like to be fed food he didn’t cook himself. He prefers to see bodies of friends and foes for himself, and he will walk with them through the entire cremation and burial process because he is suspicious of anything being changed or falsified along the way. He took Petra’s body back to Brigid. He took Lysithea’s body from Edelgard’s grief, even though she struck him in the face. 

He promised Hubert he would kill him if he strayed. He brushed blood and putrid flesh from Hubert’s hands and let Hubert brush his hair and wipe ink from his face. 

They never apologised because they owed each other nothing. 

These are all consequences of their long war. 

“Edelgard asked me to come,” Ferdinand murmurs as Hubert begins to calm. “I will say for a while. Bernadetta and Dorothea will help until I or both of us may go back.” 

Hubert breathes. In. Out. Ferdinand soothes his hand against his back. Humming softly. An old song from Manuela’s heyday. 

“Ferdie,” Hubert whispers. 

Humming. This close, Hubert can feel how his cheek moves as he smiles. 

“I love you.” 

“Oh, Hubie,” Ferdinand murmurs as they shift carefully to lie down on the bed. “I love you, too.” 

**0.**

In the dark: 

Ferdinand burns.

Confidence. Beacon. Flame. 

“Let us go home.” 

Hubert nods. He clutches Ferdinand’s hand. He is warm and solid. 

“Yes,” he whispers, agrees, shouts. 

_I’m home_

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to connect with me on [Twitter @Metallic_Sweet](https://twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!


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